Felun

The meeting went well, all things considered.

They’d made their way up to the palace with a retinue of armed guards, before being ushered into a richly-decorated and noticeably windowless room. Three thaumaturges presented themselves by the title of ‘Magician’. The leader introduced herself as a princess, the third of seven royal offspring. He wondered if being third out of seven was better than being first out of three.

Felun had turned on his Breaker-sense and watched with growing boredom as mother spoke in that roundabout way of hers, probing and inquisitive. The Magicians spared him nervous glances every now and then, but no one tried anything. They’d only demanded to search every Cathayan ship for ‘the safety of all visitors, of course’. Mother spoke and stalled, then expressed her condolences. There’d been mention of ‘creatures’ and ‘assistance’ and the implication of deeper knowledge and shared concern. At this, she’d employed the mask of a confidante; it was the one she used trying to catch people out on a lie, but tailored to the guise of an overworked diplomat’s wife. The Magicians seemed receptive to it, enough that the demands for a full search were postponed. She hadn’t needed to make use of her pendant or spell-slips. He hadn’t had to end the evening in another dead faint, and he supposed he ought to be grateful for that.

Mother headed back for the ship right afterwards, the guards crowding around her like living armour.

“Is it alright if I visit the market?” he asked.

She looked him up and down with a wintry smile. “You’re a man now, Haoyu. You can fend for yourself. You can go wherever you like.”

“Alright, then.” He didn’t stick around for that crescent of bitterness in her voice to wax any larger.

Shadowsong was a miniature city in its own right. The palace loomed over the place like the spires loomed over Glister. And just like Glister—and Shenzhou, and Sihai, and pretty much every city he’d been to—citizens bustled around heedless of the hidden intrigues above.

The streets seemed busier now the sky was dark and the air cooling. Shopkeepers lit lanterns in the colours of sunset; the sight reminded him of late summer nights back in Shenzhou, strolling the gardens with cooling runes stuck to his shoulders. A layer of sand sifted over the streets, thin and velvety, but the place looked otherwise clean and well-kept. To his surprise, mage-chariots clattered through the wider thoroughfares. Did they import the parts from Glister, or were the blacksmiths skilled enough to make them here? The first market square he wandered into smelled of rich spices and burnt chicken. He bought meat skewers and a piece of fried flatbread as he wandered; the meeting had run right through dinner, but even he’d known it would be foolish to eat or drink anything the Magicians offered them.

He asked for directions to the artisan district, which was strung with even more lights than the ordinary markets below. Stairs jutted out between painted clay buildings, leading to forges and potter’s dens and surprisingly niche varieties of artisan crafts. Asking around some more—earning him a few funny looks, but a pleasant lack of derision—led him to the entrance of a woodwright’s shop. The door was shut, but there was a light within. He knocked optimistically.

“We’re closed,” said the man answering the door. He was bearded and middle-aged, dressed in a loose tunic and trousers that fell short enough to reveal part of a wooden leg and foot. He paused pointedly at Felun’s appearance. “Who might you be?”

“I’m from Cathay,” Felun said, which was the simplest answer. “I was told you make false-legs?”

“Yes, on occasion. What were you after?”

“It’s for a friend.”

“Daaaaa,” someone called from the depths of the house. “The warming runes are going to wear off.”

The woodwright glanced over his shoulder, back into the house. “Just a moment. I’m speaking to a customer.”

There came a sound of marching footsteps. “Is it that old fool Kamal again?” A young woman came into view, waving a spoon. “We’re closed! Can’t you read the sign?”

“Yasmeen,” the woodwright scolded. “It will be just a moment.” Turning back to Felun, he said, “You’ll have to come in tomorrow. Bring your friend, though. How am I to supposed to fit it, otherwise?”

“Right,” Felun said, turning away.

Exasperation welled up in his gut, trod in a circle, and lay down like a cat. How was he going to get Ishaan out of the ship, with guards breathing down his neck? Inattention runes had a slim chance of working if the guards saw someone walking with him and thought to suspect who it was. If his parents did have an illusionist hidden somewhere, he didn’t see a high likelihood of recruiting them to his cause, never mind finding them in the first place. He was pretty sure there was an illusionist. The Magicians had brought out the melted remains of the projectile-firing box as an intimidation tactic during their meeting, and it hadn’t looked like anything the faeries might make.

He blinked. Faeries. He couldn’t make the journey to the Hive, but he did have a faery right where he needed him.

===

“What?” Yuying said. “That’s great, but I—”

“You want to be a witch, don’t you?” Felun coaxed. “Glister’s full of witches.”

“I don’t even get to take a peek at the palace?” she complained.

“There are all kinds of spires and things in Glister,” Felun said. Not that he’d been able to see much of it, having been confined to the plaster tunnels of Iolite’s hideout, but whatever. “And you can always ask Auntie Shirin about what it was like here.”

“It’s not the same,” she grumbled quietly. “But fine. How are we getting off the ship? Because I’m pretty sure all of father’s guards would recognise me. You really think your runes are strong enough?”

“Know any court illusionists here?” he asked out of morbid interest.

“Ugh, I don’t know. Fuyue, maybe? I saw him around when we were about to set off, but I don’t know if he came with.”

“Right,” he said slowly. “Okay. Silverwater, do you think we could…borrow your veilment?”

“Really?” Silverwater said. He looked up from his sketchbook, glancing between him and Yuying. “Oh, I see. Certainly. I was going to leave for the Hive in a few hours and I won’t need it after that. But in exchange, could I take Sungrazer Yuying’s inattention runes?”

“Why’s that?” Yuying asked.

“I would rather not be shot out of the air by patrolling thaumaturges. The unlikely possibilities are unfortunately, still possibilities.”

“That sounds horrible,” Yuying exclaimed. “Sure, okay, yeah—take them!”

“Hold still,” Felun said as he peeled the runes off Yuying’s forehead. It was the work of a few moments to stick the runes to Silverwater’s carapace. He hesitated when he saw a few of them flickering, professional pride—if it could still be called pride—warring with simmering resentment. “Give me a moment,” he added begrudgingly. “I can scribe out some fresh ones on top.”

“Don’t trouble yourself.”

He managed a laugh as he grabbed for his runequill. “Iolite’ll kill me if a Magician gets you.”

“Who’s Iolite?” Yuying chimed in.

“Just an acquaintance,” Felun said, quickly moving on to safer topics. “I would’ve refreshed these for you tonight anyway, Yuying.”

Silverwater’s spines twitched with amusement. “In that case, I won’t refuse. But no need to worry over Iolite’s wrath. Saiph is the better-favoured heir.”

Felun paused in his scribing. “Sorry, come again? Iolite’s your mother?” The thought, when he considered it, seemed disturbingly plausible.

Silverwater tapped his tail against the side of a crate. “Hardly in the same way humans mean ‘mother’. A better word would be…hmm. Custodian, I believe. Or caretaker. We’re made, after all. Not born. And in our case, we were found.”

“You mean you don’t have a family?” Yuying asked.

“I have a Hive now,” Silverwater said simply. “That’s much the same thing, isn’t it? Though I would say my Hive treats me a great deal better than this so-hallowed ‘family’ of yours.”

Felun refrained from pointing out that Iolite had previously dragged them all into perilous close-quarters combat and cast a wary glance at Yuying instead. “I hope you haven’t been bothering Lieutenant Silverwater.”

“Don’t worry,” Yuying said coolly. “I haven’t told him anything about you.”

Felun finished his runewriting and took a step back. He looked it over with a critical eye; not his best work, but good enough.

“Are we going now?” Yuying asked as Silverwater handed him the veilment.

“No,” Felun said quickly. “It’s too late right now. Auntie and Uncle are probably sleeping. We’ll wait until tomorrow evening. Mother and father will be busy reading after dinner.” Or talking, or plotting, or waging war in all but name—whatever the hell it was they’d come here to do.

“I won’t have anyone to talk to once Silver leaves,” Yuying grumbled. “You want me to sit around and sketch for twelve hours?”

Silverwater gave a very dry, very faerie-sounding chuckle. “Perhaps you should have thought of that before stowing away, Sungrazer Yuying. Adventure is never as splendid as the elder’s tales make it out to be.” He stood, stretching his arms and flaring his wings. “I should fly now, while the runes are fresh. Could you show me to the deck, Sungrazer Felun?”

“We’ve got to be careful,” he warned, stowing the veilment into his satchel. “If someone sees you leaving and sees your human-disguise walking around tomorrow—”

“Ah, of course.” Silverwater nodded thoughtfully and Felun was struck by how amicable he was being about this, after how their last conversation had gone. Was it possible that the power of friendliness forged over architectural drawings transcended species? What had Yuying told him?

“You could ask Yichen to make a distraction,” Yuying suggested. “He could wait until you’re ready, then yell out he saw something suspicious. One of those Magicians poking around the bow, or the stern, or whichever’s opposite to where you need to go.”

Yichen wouldn’t do that unquestioningly, Felun almost pointed out. Not for me, anyway. But he nodded. “Alright. I’ll talk to him. But let me write some new inattention runes on you first. You can wear the veilment later—it wears out the longer you use it, right?” he turned to Silverwater for a confirming nod.

“A combination of duration and each use, yes. There’s about a day or five changes left in it.”

“Aren’t you tired?” Yuying asked. “You don’t have to use so much magic for me if—”

“It’d be a real mess if they found you now,” Felun interrupted, and for once she didn’t disagree.

He wasn’t close to bloody-nosed by the time he was finished, but a familiar headache was making itself known. He headed for Ishaan’s room and knocked, hoping he was still awake.

“Hello?” Ishaan said, blinking blearily as he cracked the door open. “Oh. Felun. How’d it go?”

He kept his voice low. “I need you to go and tell one of the guards that you just saw a blue-robed guy messing around near the base of the ship. The front part—there’s a good view from the main cabin. Say you went to get some fruit from the table or something.”

“Huh? Why can’t you—oh, I see. Can I ask why?”

“I need to do something that’ll help you sneak out to a woodwright’s tomorrow. Say he wore a mask—they wear bird masks—if they ask what he looked like. Make something up about magic. The weirder-sounding, the better.”

“Alright. I’ll give you a minute?”

“Make it two.”

Ishaan nodded and retreated into his room. Felun heard him start humming a ballad to keep time, just like back in Ironport. He swallowed the lump in his throat.

The unlit interior of the ship was putting him in a strange mood, evoking memories of eerie stone chambers and cobwebbed corridors. He rushed back down to the hold and lingered by the outer door, ear pressed to the wood for the first hint of a guard’s footsteps.

Silverwater walked up to join him. “You’ve arranged it?”

Felun nodded distractedly, pressing a finger to his lips.

“Good. One last thing—”

“Shhh.”

Silverwater glared at him, as best as a faery could glare. There was a lot of spine-twitching involved.

“Listen,” Silverwater whispered, leaning close. “Your sister made me promise not to tell you. She said your mother and father broke these on her right hand while you were away.” He held up a hand with the last two fingers extended. “Had the apothecary set it, but she couldn’t draw for two moons. This was among other incidents.”

Felun stared at the jointed carapace of Silverwater’s hand before flicking his gaze up to meet his gaze. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, swallowing the rage that threatened to bubble out. “Supposing I believe you,” he said, even as he knew with a sinking feeling that it was undoubtedly, unquestionably true, those bloody cowards— “Why tell me?”

“We’re more alike than I’d thought,” Silverwater said. “And if it were me, then I would like to know.”

“Oh,” he said, remembering Saiph with smoke seeping from every joint.

A clatter of footsteps startled him, and he strained his ears to make out barked orders.

Silverwater sniffed the air. “Six of them,” he said.

“There are eight on night patrol.” Meant to be auspicious, or something. Right now, it was just annoying.

“Give it another moment.” Silverwater sniffed the air once more. “I am largely certain that the last two are halfway-indoors. Not far, but not near either. Would they be guarding the onboarding entrance, the one bridged against the dock?”

“Yeah. Makes sense. You saw the stairs on your way in? Just keep going up.”

They slipped out of the hold and crept upstairs, emerging at the stern of the ship. The moon was full and the sky bloated with stars, like salt spilled over a dark cloth. A low, hot wind blew in from the south, stirring grains of sand across the deck.

“I’ll be returning to fetch you soon,” Silverwater warned. “Very soon. No doubt Zekore is struggling. Take care of your sister.”

“Thanks,” Felun muttered. “For letting me know. And I am. I mean—I will. I try.”

Silverwater blinked, lingering at the railing. His fingers curled over its top. “You know, there were three of us once. I used to be in the middle, before Sojourner…” He trailed off. “Be safe yourself, Sungrazer Haoyu. We do what we can.”

Then he vaulted over the railing and swooped skywards. Felun watched him go. In moments, he was nothing more than another glinting speck overhead.

===

Felun almost tripped over Ishaan on his way back to his room.

“What are you lurking here for?” he hissed, stilling the reflexive rush of magic to his fist. “I almost punched you.”

“Did it work?” Ishaan whispered. “I sold it pretty good, if I say so myself.”

He sighed. “Yeah, they got out of the way and I’ve got a disguise for you. We should leave after breakfast.”

“And after that?”

Felun hesitated. “Like I said, we might have to wait until my parents sail back. Or get you onto some other ship, somehow. Glister’s the closest big city and you’ll be able to buy passage to a lot of places from there.”

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Ishaan asked, eyeing the runebook in his hand.

“Slept in late already. And I need to practice, don’t I? If we’re getting you out of here, you’ll need to move unseen. I don’t know if the disguise’ll last.”

“Don’t overdo it.”

Felun thought back to Ironport. “I won’t.” He shut the door behind him and lit a lantern. Then he reached for the dead Breaker’s book.

Flipping through to her notes on inattention and illusion-adjacent scripts yielded some results. She’d written suggestions in flowing shorthand: experimental improvements to the standardised symbols, accompanied by marginal notes exclaiming their effectiveness and sometimes, lack thereof. He set about transcribing the promising designs, and it took several tries before the script shone with workable magic. Getting the stroke order and proportions correct was a dull, steady grind of testing and repetition—one that he was used to by now.

It wasn’t pleasant or glamorous, like he’d thought Breaking or dungeonrunning would be. It made his head hurt. He thought, fleetingly, of running away. Maybe this time he could do the dungeonrunner thing for one or two years, tops—scrimping and saving enough to live out the rest of his days in a village somewhere up north. It was a wistful, stupid dream. He could never survive it. He bent his head back over his work.

The hours passed in a haze. He wasn’t sure how late it was by the time he was satisfied with his improvements, but he hesitated before going to bed. The pages of the dead Breaker’s journal rustled enticingly beneath his hands, filled with scavenged knowledge. Hadn’t Suria said something about invisible ink?

There’d been a handful of unlabelled vials in the hidden compartment of the dead Breaker’s chest, and he hadn’t felt willing to risk pouring mystery liquids onto the pages at the time. Now, he was better-positioned than he was back in Glister. Now, he had an exit in sight. If he wanted it, he was going to have to get better at what he did, no matter how morbid it might feel to rifle through the notes of his predecessor. And mother had been a high-ranking scholar back in the day; if there were any potions for revealing hidden inks aboard, they would be kept in the study.

The door was locked, but the light was on—just as he’d known it would be. He knocked.

“Mother?” he asked.

She opened the door in lieu of a greeting. There was a stylograph in her hand, dripping with ink. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

“I need something to reveal hidden text,” he said. “It’s for the faeries,” he added at her cold stare.

“Have you got the sample?”

He passed her the book.

“Alright. Come in. Close the door quietly, and don’t touch anything important.”

The desk was bathed in a modest puddle of light cast by a single rune-lamp, and the room seemed smaller in the half-dark. Mother’s silhouette merged with the shadows as she rummaged through a warded drawer against the far wall. He glanced around idly, gaze settling on a familiar object in a display cabinet by the door. Its outer hulls were obviously in pieces, though he knew the fissures ran deep—maybe even right through the core.

Why had they brought it along? Mother and father only liked perfect things, and the other pieces of art in the cabinet were undamaged as far as he could tell. Was it something to barter away?

The puzzle ball wasn’t a child’s toy, though the look of it had been what interested him as a kid. Big enough to hold with both hands, it had sat in its own locked case back in Shenzhou. It had been expensive, hand-carved by a master, one of the prizes of his father’s collection. Sinuous, wingless dragons romped over its outermost surface, boasting bulging eyes, whorled whiskers, and expressive, lolling tongues. Twenty-four layers of creamy openwork ivory nested within, each engulfing the next, all exquisitely patterned and unbearably delicate.

Over the years, he’d been struck by the urge to create it more than to own it: to craft something beautiful and so much worthier than he was. Devil’s work, they called it, because they were idiots who suspected it was impossible for something so exquisite to have sprung from clean, mortal hands.

He decided that in order to make a puzzle, one needed to know its pieces, how to untangle and invert. He’d started on locks; first with pins in tumblers—he’d borrowed Yuying’s hairpins for that—and next with spellwork, creating and dismantling simple wards. He’d found the dismantling easier, though not safer—but then, he’d been a child. What did children care about safety? All that mattered was that there was no pain. At least, not initially. In time, he learned the differences between invisible enchantments and modern runework, shining symbols for show. His studies inched closer to the fabled art of Breaking, a pursuit that incurred father’s disapproval.

“What kind of silly rubbish is this?” father had asked one day. “What are you? A respectable member of court—or a cheap crook?”

“It’s not for that,” he’d tried to say.

“Watch your tongue, Haoyu. It doesn’t matter what you intend. People will talk if you go waving that kind of disreputable magic around. What will they think about me, eh? And about your poor mother? They’ll think we haven’t raised you properly, haven’t taught you the most basic of morals. You will stop this nonsense at once.”

There’d been no use arguing. So he’d bolstered their view of him with more respectable analysis of ancient runework while he tinkered away in his spare time. And every now and again, he’d slip into the office to stare at the puzzle ball, and to wonder at the accolades its creator must have received.

Look, but don’t touch. It didn’t need to be said. Felun hadn’t been the one to break it. He’d loved it too much for that. But who would believe sneaky, lock-picking Haoyu over auspicious Thirdson Guofan? Really, it hadn’t been huge in the grand scheme of things. But it had been the last of many instances, stacked high over years and years. It had been enough.

Despite himself, his jaw clenched at the memory.

If they wanted to believe all he was good at was breaking things, then let them. He’d studied diligently in the aftermath, seething with resentment. The shouting matches built up, the words duty and responsibility flung like knives. He’d done his research, his preparation. He’d lied and stolen, packed a bottomless satchel and left. They would always see it as an admission of guilt, of hedonism and cowardice. Perhaps they hadn’t been completely wrong.

“This should work,” mother said, yanking him from his thoughts. She held out a vial of greenish liquid, shining like oil in the low light. “One drop to every cup of water, and brush it over the page. Lightly will do. Be sparing. Let it start to dry before moving on to the overleaf, unless you want to rip the paper.”

“Thank you,” he said meekly. He recognised the solution; it was one of the expensive ones.

He stopped by the galley for a pitcher of water on the way to his room. There were brushes tucked away in his bottomless bag, and he ended up having to upend a whole book’s worth of spell-paper to get to them.

He’d meant to start with the blank pages first: the ones near the end of the book. But upon opening the cover, the solution dripped from his brush and a drop bloomed over the first page. He frowned as silvery letters shimmered into existence over the growing blot, forming a word tucked into the space between one line and the next.

stop, it read.

He’d intended on painting the back pages, going to sleep, and reading them in the morning. He resisted the urge for a moment—he wasn’t a perfectionist like Yichen was—but the word shimmered enticingly. Stop what? Sighing, he let his curiousity get the better of him. Page by page, he painted by rune-light until morning came. They were journal entries, mostly—he read as he waited for each one to dry.

If you’re reading this, stop now, said the first entry. And if you’re a faery reading this, I hope you drop dead. It’s so noisy here, all the time. I wish you fuckers would soundproof the room. I’m thinking about sunlight again. I miss my family.

The following entries rambled on about the tasks she did in service of Iolite, otherwise referred to as the pretentious one. They detailed aspects of the former Breaker’s daily life: the food, the isolation, the difficulty of sleep, with various tirades interspersed throughout. On one page, she’d scrawled I HATE THIS I HATE THIS I HATE THIS over and over until the phrase silvered the entire page. Somewhere in the middle was an entry that said: have to wear gloves all the time now, not just when sleeping. Blister ointment feels less effective. Wounds up to the shoulders. So itchy. Yesterday’s door had me coughing blood.

And later, another line: the blisters have moved, I swear it; I dream they’re making a line straight for my heart.

And, it’s so dull here. Waiting all the time. Last night I dreamed of little bubbles coating my lungs, the weals leaching down to my bones. The only person who’ll talk to me is the pretentious one and Themis, and Themis is busy all of the time. She’s been more snappish and almost unpredictable lately. I think she’s in pain as well. All this hissing is hurting my ears. Do they talk about me? Do they talk about what I do? Some of them act like they’re scared of me. Good. Let them know what it’s like.

And, if you’re not me and you’ve read this far, then I’m probably dead. Or you picked a page at random and got lucky, and I’ll be back soon to kick your ass. Or—let’s be optimistic here—I’ve donated this book to a museum to be preserved as a historical artefact after being venerated for my deeds?

And, they say we go mad because of what we see. Maybe it’s true? Or maybe I’m not seeing enough?

And, my skin hasn’t been mine for a long time. I want to peel it off.

Eventually, he came to the last third of the book: the completely blank pages. When he brushed the seeing-solution over them, he revealed spells. Spells and symbols being developed, starting from the back cover. Her incomplete attempts at stronger breakages, interspersed with comments about digging through splitting channels and the route straight there and aiming for the core—time’s of essence.

When he came to the pages bridging the visible and the invisible, they detailed a set of steps—a ritual—using powdered iron and cold moonlight.

Train Breaker-sight for real, she’d written. And below it, inked hard and underlined twice: how to kill faeries. And in smaller print: bonus ability to spy on ‘invisible’ magics —> illusionists! + those creepy Songian Healers???

On the final page, she’d written: partially worked, but only because I didn’t have enough damn light. Have to go shopping again. Or ask the faeries. Scour their Hival Library? Maybe not. It’s starting to fall apart, and they all think it’s my job to fix it. Poor Themis.

The very last lines were scrawled feverishly: I see it now. I see it all. It’s like seeing every keystone. Worked so hard on this stupid thing the blisters are crawling up my face. Blinking hurts. Have to get out before it has me scratching my eyelids off. I’m scared, actually. Fucking terrified. There are so many of them. But I have to try.

It can’t end like this.

Felun rubbed his eyes, blinking wearily as the sunrise touched his desk. His jaw clicked as he stifled a yawn. He’d missed the refreshment potions Iolite handed out like candy, but suddenly the idea nauseated him. Magic brewed by the hands of a murderer. He shook his head to clear it. What was he thinking? He’d known she was one. Or at least, he’d been fairly sure. He just hadn’t thought about it, beyond the knowledge that people like Saiphenora and Silverwater cleared the way, on occasion. They removed obstacles.

No one had told him how the former Breaker had died. Likely because they didn’t want him getting ideas. This was a selfish fear, he knew; he felt that twinge in his chest because she was more like him than some random desert kingdom courtiers. He read over the last page again, stomach clenching into a dry knot.

They’d wanted her to fix the Archive? He knew now that she’d been pushed to limits, been doomed to fail. Iolite had made that very clear, without even meaning to.

And now he was the replacement, sent to salvage what was left.